The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (28 page)

By the summer of 2011 there were over a hundred city downtowns occupied around the country. The movement grew in boldness as it grew in numbers, openly defying police forces everywhere. All the while, many a politician dismissed the violence and the vitriol and celebrated the phenomena as ‘An American Spring.’ Celebrities left their multi-million dollar homes for getaway weekends, slumming in search of solidarity-cred among the rich-bashing revolutionaries. Stores of superlatives were exhausted by the media in describing the idealism, hopes, visions, dreams, ambitions and intentions of the demonstrators.

Occupiers and Maxists went global in a few short months. They joined with likeminded groups all over the world and together launched the ‘International Insurgency’s Week of Outrage.’ The 2012 May Day Uprising exceeded its organizers’ every expectation. Life as usual was brought to a grinding halt around the world as arson, vandalism, looting and riot loosed hell on over three thousand cities. The week long protest became a month long ordeal. The month long ordeal stretched into three months of terror. And then, like an exclamation point at the end of the Maxist creed, the mushroom cloud rose over Panama!

The next three years were the most glory-filled of young Leonard Brewer’s life. The nuclear bomb killed all but two of the Western hemisphere’s heads of state, but more importantly the explosion destabilized the geopolitical order. In the blast’s aftermath, war broke out on the borders between Mexico and America, Georgia and Russia, Turkey and Greece, Egypt and Israel and on the streets of dozens of nations. The Maxists, never willing to let a crisis go unexploited, were everywhere doing everything they could to escalate and exacerbate the orgy of violence. They did not discriminate, defiling or destroying whatever it took to incite riot and spread mayhem.

Leo spent those years happily above the thick of it, marshaling and mobilizing armies of mobs with taps and clicks of his laptop’s keys. Millions died before order was restored around the world. It was a good start, he thought, a fine dress rehearsal for the ‘International Insurgency’s Year of Outrage’ scheduled to begin May Day of 2020. He thought so that is, until the satellites failed, rendering his computer and PalmPal useless. Brewer is at a loss for the first time in his life. He is not alone. His contact at the local network was astounded by the scope of what has been done. She and her peers at the television station were stunned dumb and blind by the loss of the satellites.

“Governments have managed to shut down networks here and there around the world from time to time,” she told him. “But nothing like this has ever… Nothing so absolute… nothing so world-wide has ever been done before.”

“What’s been done exactly?” he asked her.

“As far as we can tell from down here, every satellite in the sky has been linked up into one system and they are all jamming the airwaves with a signal that scrambles our transmissions.”

“All of them?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Every signal is being chopped up into digital confetti by the jamming. We can’t get anything through it.”

“That doesn’t explain why the apps aren’t working on our phones,” Leo said. “They’re not satellite dependent, not all of them. How are they doing it?”

“Do you remember how the nuclear explosion in Panama fried electronics for miles around with its electromagnetic pulse?” she offered. “Well, it seems the satellites are emitting a low grade pulse that is just strong enough to suppress the working of cell phones and computers. It’s freaky how selective, how targeted the attack is. It’s not all electronics, just whatever communicates or connects to the web.”

Leo finds it eerily unnerving being cut off from the internet. No, not just the internet, he corrects himself; he is cut off from the world, his world, the one in which he is master. Without the internet, his ability to lead the counter-demonstrators against the Christians is going to be severely compromised. His task is further complicated by the fact that many of his minions, who are as easily distracted as they are led, left their camps in the parks when the planes were shot down. They were at the river, hoping no doubt, to catch sight of floaters.

Brewer and Mayor Marion left their offices minutes ago after receiving word that the manifest from Barcelona was a dummy list. The names of three of the six crew members were matches for three soldiers executed by the Taliban. The other names were matches for the soldiers and civilians killed during the Tea Party riot. Everyone named on the manifest has been dead for a decade. The revelation convinced the Mayor that there would be no bodies to dredge up from the waters of either the river or the bay and so he could have his police officers released from under the military’s control. There was a little over an hour before the Christians began their illegal services and Marion was determined to stop them. With the loss of National Guard troops, the Mayor
was limited in what he could do. He would settle on a token demonstration of his power.

“We’ll stop the Mass,” the Mayor decided. “We’ll arrest the Catholics, priests and all. They’re the biggest pain of all of them.”

Almost immediately after driving away from City Hall the two men were struck by the strange stillness that had fallen on the city.

Their car comes to a stop at a red light before the intersection of Capitol and 2
^nd
Street. Leo looks out the front window, down Capitol Street. He notes that the Catholics didn’t join the curious at the river. They are still in the park, kneeling in neat rows, praying their Rosaries. Out the side windows he sees soldiers on either side of the street. The light turns green and the car pulls forward. They drive slowly between the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court building towards 1
^st
Street and the National Mall. Evenly spaced soldiers line the length of this street as well.

“There are more soldiers out than I expected to see,” he says. “Do you think the President’s order to withdraw the National Guard was rescinded?”

“I don’t know,” answers the Mayor. “What bothers me is that I haven’t seen a single cop out here. Not one. From City Hall to here, I haven’t seen a single one.”

“I’d guess they are still down by the river, assisting NTSB.”

“All of them?”

Brewer shrugs.

The Towne Car makes a right turn on 1
^st
Street. Up close now, on their left they see there are soldiers in a protective square around the kneeling, praying Christians. These soldiers are in full riot gear, shields at their sides and Stun-Rods slung across their backs. On their right, more soldiers, similarly decked, line the length of the street and others form a protective ring around a group of priests and acolytes setting up an altar before the tall doors of the Supreme Court. The Mayor hurls a string of curses toward the altar.

“Stop the car,” Barry Marion says suddenly.

The driver complies. Two of the soldiers nearest them converge on the car. They wave the driver to continue. The small, slick-haired Hispanic at the wheel looks back at the Mayor for instruction.

“Stay put,” Barry orders.

The Mayor lowers his window. He is seated on the passenger-side, nearest the soldier who bends to address them.

“Move along please,” the round-faced, young man says in a mid-western accent. “There’s no stopping permitted here.”

“I’m the Mayor of this town, son.”

“Sorry Mr. Mayor, but no exceptions.”

“Who is in charge here, soldier?”

“That would be Colonel Michaels, sir.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Command and Control Post is pitched by the Jefferson Memorial, Mr. Mayor.”

“Thank you,” says Barry Marion and rolls up the window. “To the Jefferson Memorial, Oscar.”

The driver nods. The car pulls forward, makes a right turn on Maryland and doubles back on 2
^nd
Street. Halfway way down D Street their attentions are drawn south towards the river. In the distance they can make out the shadows of shifting crowds under clusters of lights spread between Gangplank Marina and the Capital Yacht Club. Beyond the crowds and the lights, a twin rotor helicopter rises slowly over the waters of the Washington Channel. A pair of spot lights slice the dark in jerking motions until they fix on the wing and half-fuselage hanging from lines beneath the chopper. The spot lights follow the wreckage as it is flown across the channel and lowered onto the golf course across the water.

“I wonder if they’ve pulled anything from the bay yet,” Leonard says as the scene retreats to their rear.

Barry Marion doesn’t comment. They ride on in silence, each man adrift in his own thoughts. As the Towne Car crosses Basin Drive, their attentions are drawn to the north. On the far shore of the Tidal Basin, they spot a long line of military trucks, armored vehicles and, bringing up the rear, a half dozen tanks rolling into the city across the Kutz Bridge.

“That’s a bit much,” says Leo.

“Ain’t it?”

Their driver pulls off Basin Drive and stops the car at a soldier’s order. The Mayor opens his window again and sticks his small head out of it.

“I’m Mayor Marion and I’m looking for a Colonel Michaels.”

The soldier looks him over quickly. “If you’ll step out of the car and follow me, I will take you to the Colonel, Mr. Mayor.”

“Wait for us here, Oscar,” Mayor Marion tells his driver and motions for Leo to follow him.

Leonard and Barry step out of the car and follow the soldier to a large tent raised in front of the Jefferson Memorial. It is a canvas rectangle, thirty by twenty feet. Two soldiers stand guard outside the entrance. Their guide pulls back the tent’s flap with one hand and motions for them to enter with the other. Brewer and Marion pause at the entrance and look up as a dozen Cobra gunships suddenly fly overhead in two, tight chevrons.

Inside the tent are six more soldiers. Two of them are in the center, bent over a table of maps. They look up when Leo and Barry enter. One of them is white and no more than five and a half feet tall with short, dark hair and dark, blue eyes. The other soldier is black, a foot taller, brown-eyed, bald and missing an arm. The left sleeve of his uniform is neatly folded where the elbow would be, its cuff pinned to the shoulder. The other four soldiers in the tent are standing guard, two on either side of the entrance flaps and the other pair at the far corners. The four are in the head-to-toe black plating of full battle armor. Their breastplates are emblazoned with red, eight-pointed crosses. The sight of the crosses makes Brewer uneasy, even more so than the automatic rifles slung at their hips or Stun-Batons, held at the ready, in their arms.

“I told you he’d show,” the one-armed soldier says to the other at the table with him.

“I guess that’s why you’re the boss,” replies the shorter, white officer wearing Captain’s bars. He pulls out his wallet, takes a hundred dollar bill out of it and slaps it into the other’s palm.

“Colonel Michaels?” The Mayor asks, stepping forward.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Mayor?” The black soldier asks, slipping the C-note into his breast pocket.

“I need my cops back.”

“Sorry,” says the Colonel. “No can do. I’ve got them on crowd control at the recovery sites.”

“I need them.”

“No you don’t, Mr. Mayor,” the Colonel says with a shake of his head. “What you both need to do is place your hands behind your backs.”

“What?”

“Place your hands behind your backs.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

The Colonel nods at the soldiers standing at either side of the tent entrance. Leo and Barry turn to see them approach. Blue sparks fly and crackle between the small, metal nubs studding the rounded crowns of the two-foot long Stun-Batons.

“What’s the meaning of this?” The Mayor asks as he retreats from the advancing soldiers.

“We’d love to explain,” the Colonel says. “But we’re a little busy right now, what with taking over the country and all.”

Leo looks about nervously, searching for a way to escape. He considers bolting to the back or the sides of the tent and slipping out underneath the canvas. The other two armored soldiers close in hurriedly, quickly dissuading him from thoughts of escape.

“You won’t get away with this!” The Mayor yells out. “Let’s get out of here, Leo.”

Barry Marion turns and tries to slip through the two soldiers standing between him and the exit. The Mayor takes a single step before he is jabbed in the side by one of the batons. His back arches and his limbs flail for an instant before his legs fold and he drops to the ground unconscious.

Brewer throws his hands up. “Don’t taze me, bro!”

His arms are pulled down by one of the soldiers and his hands are zip tied behind his back. He watches as they turn Marion on to his belly and tie his hands. A moment later, a black, wool hood is put over Leo’s head and the tremors of panic begin to stir in the pit of his stomach. He is prodded to move and led out of the tent. They walk him for several yards before lifting him bodily and dumping him and the Mayor unceremoniously in the back of a truck.

18:45:20

“Wake up, Lamar,” President O’Neill gently rocks the congressman by the shoulder.

It takes several long moments for the fog to clear from the congressman’s head. Lamar Reed rises slowly to a sitting position and takes in his surroundings. He is on a narrow bed in a small room whose only other furnishings are a tall chest of drawers on which his coat is lying and a wall mounted, digital clock that reads 23:15. Morton Gallagher stands silently behind the President. One of the female agents is in the doorway, her back to them.

“What happened?” Lamar asks, swinging his legs off the bed. “Where are we?”

“We’ve been kidnapped,” the President answers. “We’re in Mount Weather, or rather, we’re under it.”

“Mount Weather?”

“Yes,” says the President. “It’s an underground installation about fifty miles northwest of DC. I toured it during my first year as President. FEMA uses it as a catastrophe command center.”

Congressman Reed looks down to find his shoes. He slips his feet into the loafers.